Hyeres Preview

Nigel Cherrie takes a look at this year's Hyeres Olympic Regatta...

The story of the 2002 Olympic regatta season begins for real on Sunday.

Over 1000 crews from every corner of the globe, from aspiring Olympians to seasoned campaigners, have descended on the French Mediterranean port of Hyeres for the annual multi-Olympic classes regatta.

This is where the season really gathers momentum.

But with the Volvo Ocean Race still in full swing, the maxi-cat Orange tearing up the planet, the America’s Cup soon to be underway and another 847 days to the Athens Olympic Games, is this event significant in the present scheme of things?

From a British perspective the answer is 50/50.

RYA Olympic Manager Stephen Park views Hyeres, along with next month’s SPA regatta and Kiel week in June, as a two-fold exercise.

"It’s down to individual goals," he explained. "Not every event is an outcome regatta. Lots of those guys have process goals [starting, tuning etc] they have to deal with and in some cases that could mean more than the actual outcome. At the same time someone like Nick Rogers [in the 470 class with Joe Glanfield] will have in the back of his mind that he won here last year and will be keen to do the same again."

Rogers is now amongst the very best in the class but is closely pursued by Graham Vials and Dan Newman.

Park views Paul Goodison as another medal contender. Goodison is aiming to take over his mantle of his former training partner, Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie. Five-time world champion Robert Scheidt, who duelled with Ainslie over the last four years, has not swapped disciplines and is still regarded as the measure of performance.

Ainslie himself is making his second appearance in the Finn. While he is enjoying the new challenge he is not expecting the podium finishes he could seemingly pull off at the drop of a hat in the Laser.

"It is normally quite a windy event," said Ben referring to the local Mistral breeze that rips through Hyeres at over 20knots on some days. "I’m struggling with that at the moment. I'm 5kg under weight and I'm not sailing fit either. A top ten place would be a great result for me at this stage."

Following a warm weather winter spent training in Miami, fellow Olympic champion Shirley Robertson will use Hyeres to get her racing programme underway in the new keelboat class named the Yngling.

After a recent crew swap, Robertson's Europe training partner in Sydney, Sarah Ayton takes over from Sam Davies (now on Maiden 2) on the bow with Inga Leask in the middle of the boat.

"This could be the first event where lots of them come together," continues Park, referring to the new Yngling class fleet. "It is clearly very early days and this regatta will certainly not show any form for 2004 but it will be of interest."

Of the rest of Team GBR, in the women's 470 class Helena Lucas and Jenny Healey are the form crew but are not yet in the top three internationally.

In the men’s Mistral windsurfer division, expect a great season from Nick Dempsey and Dominic Tidey but this could be a non-target event. But in the women's event, always expect to see Natasha Sturges' name in the headlines.

The handful of UK Tornado teams are still developing their revised and more powerful boats but all are capable of challenging for race wins.

After the 49er crew exchanges in recent weeks, the new Paul Brotherton/Mark Asquith and Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks partnerships will be using Hyeres to work up their teamwork prior to the world championships in Hawaii.

Keep an open mind on the results but look forward to a few surprises - both ways. madforsailing will be reporting on the action each night from Hyeres.